Mobile computing devices, in recent years, have become powerful computing devices that can be used much like a desktop personal computer or a laptop computer. They have become essential tools for today's mobile workforce, providing remote accesses to enterprise-class servers through client terminal applications running thereon. For companies that have adopted Virtual Desktop Infrastructure® (VDI), which is available from VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., client terminal applications may be installed on mobile computing device to enable access to virtual machines executing in centrally managed servers from the mobile computing devices.
The advantages of enabling remote access into centrally managed servers from mobile computing devices are obvious. It allows the users to stay connected to e-mail and document management applications without having them installed on their mobile computer devices. In addition, computational power available to the users is a function of what the servers can provide and not limited by the hardware installed in the mobile computing devices. Also, battery life of the mobile computing devices can be extended by offloading heavy computational tasks to the servers. The job of system administrators is also simplified because they have greater control of firewalls, security patches, availability, and backups, as they do not have to manage different types of mobile hardware and software platforms. Finally, sensitive data can be safeguarded even in the event the mobile computing devices are lost or stolen by requiring passwords to access to the mobile computing devices and preventing the mobile computing devices from caching any sensitive data.
In addition to computing power, mobile computing devices have undergone significant improvements in user interface (UI) design. The enablers of these improvements have been non-conventional input devices such as multi-touch surfaces and an assortment of sensors, including GPS sensor, accelerometer, magnetic field sensor, orientation sensor, temperature sensor, barometric pressure sensor, and gyroscopic sensor. However, many of these non-conventional input devices are not fully enabled when the user accesses remote computing resources through client terminal applications running on their mobile computing devices even though their mobile computing devices are equipped with the non-conventional input devices. As a result, the user experience is quite different when the user is operating the mobile computing devices to access remote computing resources as compared to when they are operating the mobile computing devices natively.
There have been efforts to offer some of the UI features enabled by the non-conventional input devices, such as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/362,854, filed Jan. 31, 2012, entitled “MULTI-TOUCH INTERFACE GESTURE FOR KEYBOARD AND/OR MOUSE INPUTS”. In the technique described therein, inputs from the non-conventional input devices are translated into mouse and keyboard events and processed by the remote computing resources as mouse and keyboard events. The obvious limitation of such a technique is that not all inputs from the non-conventional input devices can be translated into mouse and keyboard events. Moreover, even in situations where such inputs are translated, user experience is not accurately replicated.